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Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. -- C S Lewis

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Friday, 31 May 2013

Renormalise

Today is 31 May, 2013. It is "World No Tobacco Day." Fuck 'em.

For me, today was a very, very good Tobacco Day. The snus fairy delivered fresh snus so that I can use it when I travel to the States in two weeks' time. You might recall that I like to travel with snus when flying, because flying sucks these days.

By complete coincidence, the hand-rolling tobacco fairy visited today as well, and "magically" I now have a gorgeous supply of 50g pouches of Belgian-bought Golden Virginia, thus legally starving the UK of the tobacco duty they so desperately want from smokers. Because why would you pay up to sixteen or seventeen quid for a 50g pouch that you can buy for only five euros in Belgium?

This is the consequence of raising the duty on tobacco so high to "nudge" me to quit smoking; this is the consequence of the tobacco control industry's failed initiatives and legislation to "denormalise" smoking. I haven't quit. I'm not going to quit (unless the anti-smokers take me up on my offer -- but they won't, because they need that money to figure out why everything they've ever done has failed to reduce smoking rates and likely increased them). I'm simply going to source my tobacco from a less oppressive regime. And when I can no longer do that for whatever reason, then I'll grow my own. And if they try to make growing your own tobacco illegal, such as they do with cannabis (another massive government failure), then I suppose I will become a criminal.

More likely, I'll just leave the UK to a more favourable clime.

So, how's that for World No Tobacco Day? Fuck 'em. Fuck all and every last one of those bastards. Let us all now raise a two-fingered salute (or one-finger if you prefer to give these nazis the bird) to every hateful, socialist, piece of fucking shit that works in tobacco control: you are all -- to every last man and woman -- evil, massive cunts. I hope you all live forever.

What else should we do?

Well, Smoking Hot from the Nothing 2 Declare blog sent me a short missive suggesting that we make a video of smokers enjoying themselves, you know ... happy, partying, enjoying their life as we try to do best. I think it's a great idea, so I agreed to make a video like this. But we need your help to do it. Actually, we need your photos and/or videos of you smoking to do it.

What do you think? Who wants to be infamous? Want to be in a video that simultaneously shows how awesome we are and gives nanny two fingers? If you do, then great! But there's a catch. It's a pesky legal thing, but an absolutely necessary legal thing. OK, it's a bit more than one legal thing. And yes, it's a huge pain but it has to be done this way. Let me explain by telling you what we're looking for exactly.

1. You must own the photos/videos that you want me to put in the video. No exceptions. Do not send me other people's photos/videos or those you found on-line, don't send me your friends' photos, don't send me the photos that your daughter-in-law took, and definitely don't send me the photos you found on Xhamster or any other amateur upload site. I cannot use them unless they, the copyright owners, send them to me, and I will certainly check all photos to see if they exist elsewhere. The photos and vids must be yours. So if someone you know has photos of you smoking, then you need to ask them to send them to me.

2. You must specifically agree to allow me to use the photos/videos in respect of this video we're making. In effect, you are giving me an indefinite, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the photos for only the video. If you do not agree to those terms, then I cannot use your photos. Note: YOU still own your photos and vids, the copyrights, and everything. You're just giving me permission to use them for the video only, which will be released for free and will never make a penny. So don't panic about these legal terms. Legal terms are designed to make the average person baulk and run away to give solicitors, lawyers and other attorneys an advantage on this stuff. To take your money.

3. The people in your photos or vids, if they are not you, must also agree to have their likeness used in the video. So you will need to obtain their permission as well. I will need written confirmation from each person depicted in the photos or vids, for each individual photo or vid you submit. Yes, I know this is a pain. I will do my best to make it as easy as possible for you by creating and providing a template to combine multiple submissions into one thing.

4. Both the photographer and the people (models) in the photos or vids absolutely must agree to waive their "moral rights" in respect of using the photos for this video only. What does this mean? Well, it means that once you give me a licence to use the photos and I create the video, you cannot at some future date force me to take your photos out of the finished video because you had a change of heart about images of you smoking appearing on-line. Essentially, it's a safety clause for me, the licensee. I will not use any photo where the moral rights have not been specifically waived. Period.

5. Photos should be at least 800 x 600. No smaller than that, please. Larger is much better. 1200 x 762 or higher would be ideal, because the video will be in high-definition. Super massive photos that are so large as to have their own gravitational pull are also good.

And that's it. In summary:

- You must own the photos/vids
- You agree to licence the photos/vids to me for use in the video
- The models in your photos/vids must also agree -- (if they don't, or they are unable to, then I can blur their image, but really... that's crap, and I don't want to have to do that, and to be fair I probably won't use the image. People who are dead cannot provide permission so they are an exception. I can use images of dead folk, but only as long as you're the owner of the photo.)
- Both the photographer (the copyright owner / licensor) and the models depicted in the photos agree to waive their "moral rights" in respect of these photos for this video.
- No tiny pics -- photos should be at least 800 x 600.

Simple. Right? Yeah? Hello... er... Where did everybody go?

Anyway. We want cheerful photos. Fun and funny photos. Real photos of you. Sexy photos are good, too. Parties. Raves. Defying smoking bans. Whatever! Also, you can make your own artwork rather than take photos. For example, see the stuff that Lawson Narse has made. Same legal stuff applies to your artwork -- DO NOT USE anybody's copyrighted stuff to create your artwork and drawings. There is lots of free public domain stuff out there, though. Just be careful and make sure you can use things. In some cases, attribution may be required if you use someone else's stuff.

Anything that shows smokers enjoying themselves and that smoking is NORMAL is absolutely ideal.

Because smoking is absolutely fucking normal. That's why these public health fuckholes are so desperate to "de-normalise" something that is normal for a significant percentage (45% maybe?) of people all over the world. So on World No Tobacco Day, I say, "Fuck 'em!" And so should you, if you want to do that. We'll counter their evil, fascist, Hitler-inspired denormalisation regime with our own liberty and freedom renormalisation video. It's going to fucking rock!

Unless nobody sends in photos. Then it's going to suck ass. So we need your help.

Oh, there's just one more thing. We need to do this sensibly and make it a bit easier on me. So I'm going to ask you to upload the photos to an on-line site somewhere of your choice. I would recommend Imgur.com or even using your Google Drive account and sharing the pictures through that. I don't want to receive any actual photos/images by e-mail. And there is no guarantee that your photo(s) will be used.

Before we go whole-hog on this idea, let me know what you think in the comments, or e-mail with concerns, suggestions, or whatever. I'm thinking that once it's kicked off properly, we'll allow for about 30 days for submissions. And um, yeah... that's the awesome idea that Smoking Hot came up with and of course I ruined with all of this legal bullshit. But needs must.

Let me know, please.

Yours sincerely,
Jay

P.S.: Huge thanks to everybody who shared the last video "The Root of All Evil". Much appreciated. If you didn't share it, why the fuck not?

P.P.S: I may request tiny pieces of your souls for the video too, at my discretion. But that will probably be optional.